Martha Thomases: Superman, Wonder Woman, and Sex
According to Entertainment Weekly, we are about to see a romance between Superman and Wonder Woman. According to the illustration on the site, it looks to be an “adult” relationship.
In some ways, this is genius. DC won’t have to field questions about the Larry Niven issue, since Wonder Woman is invulnerable. Although I’ve always thought Niven’s premise is flawed. There are no holes in the Kent’s farmhouse from Clark’s wet dreams or wank sessions. Or from him spitting.
And, in the current continuity, Superman and Wonder Woman are both the (mostly) sole survivors of lost civilizations. They share outsider status.
In some ways, it’s just another stunt. Look, two of our flagship characters are having sex with each other! No Lois Lane! No Steve Trevor! This is not your father’s DC Comics!
(How desperate is that, since that ad campaign was aimed at your father when he was your age?)
I’ll be interested to see how they do this. The new Superman hasn’t particularly defined himself to me, at least not out of Grant Morrison’s Action Comics stories, which are supposed to be five or so years in the past. I find Wonder Woman a better-drawn character. So much better, in fact, that I can’t imagine how they will write her in a sexual relationship. With Superman.
I’ll be interested, but I expect to be appalled. Sex in mainstream comics is, for the most part, handled very poorly. It’s all about tits and ass, which are among my favorite body parts, but not all there is to sex. However, fighting and rescuing people and standing around talking in mainstream comics are also all about tits and ass.
There is also a really smarmy air to most adult relationships in comics. It is as if sex is such a rare thing that only really cool people can have it. Maybe this was true in high school, but it’s not true for real grown-ups. Grown-ups have sex on a regular basis, most often with someone they like.
In comics, sex is unusual and awesome. One cannot have a conversation of any kind with a sex-partner without referring to sex, whether that conversation is in the office, at breakfast, or in a fight with aliens. I felt like that when I first had sex (in medieval times). It seemed like an amazing secret among me and the people I slept with, like we were in the world’s greatest VIP section. But then I got over myself, and realized that millions of people are having sex at any given moment. It’s one of the things that makes us humans, or at least mammals.
True, not all of them can fly. Maybe that will make the difference.
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I’m confident that the relationship (if it’s even serious enough to be called that) will a) be limited to Justice League and b) not last.
Heck, John Byrne did a story early in his run where Clark and Diana hooked up, and basically figured out there was no chemistry between them. But boy, did that cover make some heads explode.
Superman and Lois is as ingrained into the popular psyche as Show White and Prince Charming. If you were to write a story where Show White was woken up by a passing minstrel and went off to form a double act, people would reject it because That’s Not How The Story Goes.
In the same way that DC brought back the original “real” Supergirl and Batgirl, so too will Clark’s eye wander back to Lois and that relationship will return to the fore.
I’ve said it before, the best marriage relationship in comics was Ralph and Sue Dibny. And the steady stream of things that got done to them, up to and including being written off the map, was always greatly saddening to me.
I have a very specific story in mind about another married couple in comics, one whose relationship needs and deserves fixing. I am hoping I will eventually get the ear of the editor of the book and pour it in, and get the chance to write it. If I get to do it, it could result in another Ralph and Sue.
If Wonder Woman is invulnerable, can her hyman be broken? Can any amazon get prenant?
Just curious.
If I’m not mistaken, they fuck mud or something.
So you’re saying they’re mudder fuckers?
Why, yes I am, Peter!
Yes Wonder Woman can get pregnant and actually got pregnant by superman in a comic about a possible future. Superman/Wonder Woman hooked up and she has a baby. So its possible for her to get pregnant. So hopefully they have a real relationship in this timeline.
It makes sense that Superman and Wonder Woman would be a couple. When Frank Miller came out with “DK2” in the summer of 2003, Superman and Wonder Woman had a daughter together. They weren’t married, but they had A LOT of sex. They even did it on the surface of the moon.
There was a time when Lois and Clark/Superman had a really good adult relationship–I don’t remember who was writing the book then…but I thought the relationship on SMALLVILLE was handled extremely well, and, yes, even on LOIS AND CLARK the relationship was more “adult.”
As for Diana and Supes…well, it’s basically a fan geek’s wet dream, isn’t it?
And I still maintain that Diana, being brought up on Themiscrya, would look to her own sex for an adult relationship.
John Byrne did this back in the late 80’s when he did the Superman reboot back then. Hardly an original idea.
That was one issue, and consisted of one date. I think this is supposed to last somewhat longer.
I shall look forward to flying sex – no seriously he’d better get it a mile high…